


Compassion

by SerialKillerQueen



Series: Eldritch [4]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Empathy, Fix-It, Gen, Head Injury, Telepathy, Trying to treat a head injury in a semi realistic way, do not copy to another site, unbeta'd we die like mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 23:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20554121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerialKillerQueen/pseuds/SerialKillerQueen
Summary: El and Max (and an eldritch nightmare possessing a corpse) go looking for a Billy who has a head injury.Sequel to Comprehension, final in the Empathy Trilogy!





	Compassion

**Author's Note:**

> Stranger Things and its characters do not belong to me. All rights go to their respective owners.

Max is angry, El knows. Even if the other girl hadn't made it very clear at the mall, she would be able to feel it. 

El told her what she had seen in the Mind Flayer's mind, Billy, and Max was very angry, she was very scared too.

And here they are, walking along mostly empty streets, going toward the Brimborn Steel Works to try and find him.

She _promised_ to help it go back to the Upside Down, and she will, but Billy was _hurt_ and Max had said it could be really bad because it was his head. 

(And she thinks they should tell the others what has happened, then they will figure out how to get to the gate, it knew it was in the mall but not entirely sure where).

A part of her is very glad Jim isn't here, she imagines he'd be scared angry at the sight of her holding its hand.

She had let it go, but it was harder to stay... connected, to its mind when she wasn't physically connected, and it had started to bleed(?) again when the connection weakened.

_It was meant to connect, not one mind._

So she wrapped her fingers around its cold _cold_ hand and felt its mind (so so different from Mike's or Will's)... rest, like a weight in the back of her skull. Not bad, not painful, but very strange.

There was still anger in its mind, toward her, toward humans, toward this place so unlike its home, but it's muffled. 

There's a lot of other things too, and she chooses to focus on those, her own anger won't help.

Because she is angry at it, angry at it for Will, angry at it for Barb, angry at it for Billy. She's angry at it for _her._ But it wants to go home, and she understands, and maybe no one else will have to get hurt.

_"Billy!"_

Max rushes forward and she sees him now, he's... he's laying on the ground, beside the road, he's still, and she feels her chest clench anxiously, speeding up to reach him.

Max is kneeling beside him, shaking him, asking him to wake up.

She kneels too, dragging it down with her, and _reaches._

Billy is still there, she tries to nudge inside his head, and he stirs, blinking dazedly before his eyes go wide and he tries to push himself up, to get away.

She is confused for a moment before she realizes. It had hurt him, it let him go but it still hurt him, he doesn't understand what it is or what it wants, and he's afraid. She lets go of its hand, just for a moment, to wrap both of her's around Billy's arm.

"It's okay, it won't hurt you again, I wouldn't let it."

**Author's Note:**

> Oof remember how this series was supposed to be about all kinds of different takes on the Mind Flayer? I promise we'll go back to that, I've got one idea I'm super excited to try but it's gonna take some time and I wanted to wrap up some loose ends. This isn't so much meant to be about MF as just tying up that plot. I honestly feel like it's perfectly doable AND in character for El and MF to just storm down to the gate and not involve the others, but I wanted to revisit Billy since we left him bleeding and highly confused, and I didn't want to just drop some "they got it back through the gate and were now looking for Billy" line, so MF had to come along. And what can I say? I'm a sucker for eldritch hand holding. I really wanted to play with the telepathy thing some more too!
> 
> Also TV shows... head injuries are not mild things that characters can brush off and therefore I won't treat them as such. (Although I'm not claiming medical accuracy here). I hope you guys enjoy!
> 
> The line about it being meant to connect is a direct quote from empathy! El saw in it's head remember? The 'scared angry' thing isn't a typo, it's a call back to 'halfway happy!' There's also been multiple fics that have El promising to protect Billy so I credit them for inspiring the line!


End file.
